


Help!! My Roommate is a Sexy Drug Dealer!

by Discreet



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: 420, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Drugs, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Organized Crime, blaze it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23991247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Discreet/pseuds/Discreet
Summary: "Have you ever smoked before?""Yes," was Taylor's immediate answer and she regretted it immediately.She had never so much as smoked a marshmallow, much less a marijuana!ORTaylor's freshman year at college gets lit when she meets her new roommate.
Relationships: Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver/Lisa Wilbourn | Tattletale
Comments: 22
Kudos: 88





	1. Help!! My Roommate is a Sexy Drug Dealer!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my therapy story.

"Have you ever smoked before?"

"Yes," was Taylor's immediate answer and she regretted it immediately.

She had never so much as smoked a marshmallow, much less a marijuana!

She stared at the clumped green coughball that was otherwise known as mary jane. And splitting that bundle of weed with a credit card was Taylor's new roommate Lisa.

Lisa, blonde, green-eyed, with a splash of freckles across her nose. Lisa with smiles that quirked higher on one end than the other. Lisa who smiled and rubbed Taylor’s shoulder when they met for the first time. Lisa who carried Taylor’s luggage to help move her in, Lisa who took a peek at Taylor’s bag, and then when Taylor caught her, just laughed and said "just checking for toys, haha".

That Lisa who was currently chopping the ball of ganga for her pipe.

"Haha, heck yeah!" Lisa said, grinning, "When was the last time you smoked?"

Taylor froze and her brain went into overdrive. What? Why would Lisa ask that, why would— oh wait, right. Taylor had said she smoked before. Like an idiot.

"Oh, you know," Taylor said precisely. "A while ago."

"Yeah? Well, guess you're in luck, huh?"

"Yeah," Taylor said, strained, "really lucky to have a roommate who's a drug dealer."

Lisa grinned, one end quirked higher than the other. "Yeah, you are."

The wad of weed had been broken down into some more manageable crumbs. Lisa pinched some up and began stuffing it into the smoking apparatus that Lisa had called "Lisa 2".

Taylor stared transfixed as gleaming, polished fingernails scooped up that herb known as marijuana.

“Lisa 2” was a glass pipe with an open bowl on one end. It was in that bowl where Lisa 1 was packing her reefer.

"So, this is one of our new blends," Lisa explained, as she filled the bowl. "It's 2-parts a Ghandi-Fa strain, 1-part California-Red and 1-part Richard-Pryor. So it's mostly chill, but there's also that active kick that’ll catch you by surprise. That's what we call a 'hybrid'."

Lisa glanced up from her to work to check if Taylor was following all that.

"Oh, yeah," Taylor said, trying not to explode, "Word."

Lisa grinned again, clearly happy she had found someone who shared her interests. "Word."

She stuffed the last bits of bud into the bowl, and pulled out a lighter.

"Packer gets first smacker," she said like it was practiced.

"Uh, word."

Lisa put the glass pipe to her lips, and lit the bowl. The clumped grass smoldered and glowed orange and then a white smoke flashed through the glass pipe and into Lisa's lips.

Very, very quickly, Taylor mentally checked if she had locked the door to their room before remembering their door was the type that locked automatically when it closed. She then visually checked if the blinds were open or closed.

They were _half-open, half-closed_.

Taylor inhaled very loudly and coughed. "Uh, excuse me a second."

She sidestepped to the window. It was still shamelessly bright out, sun gleaming on this fine fall day, perfect weather for a moving-in day and meeting new people. There seemed like some kind of frisbee game going out on the quad.

All it would take was for that frisbee to sail fifty yards this way and up to the third floor, and then they would see _everything_. With painfully stiff hands, Taylor grasped the cord and yanked. The blinds tilted sideways, leaving open a gap in window coverage so massive that Taylor's heart was liable to leap out of it.

She yanked the cords the other way, and the blinds fell back down, slats flat against the glass.

The dorm room fell into a dim glow as the sunlight was cut off by the blinds, only a few slices of it getting through.

"Hey," Lisa cried, "at least turn the light on if you're gonna close the blinds!"

Taylor flinched and turned around. "Right, sorry." she sidestepped to the light switch and hit it, bathing the dorm room in a cold hard fluorescent light that was better suited for a hospital than a bedroom.

"Thanks, for doing..." Lisa lit her bowl and took a deep inhale "...that. I always hate interrupting a good take."

"Oh, word?" Taylor said, not knowing what a good take was.

"Yeah," Lisa said. She took another puff. "Ok, I think I'm good, now." She looked up at Taylor, smiling. "It's your turn."

The door was literally five steps away and Taylor could probably cover that in one if she needed to. That was all it took. She could make that leap, get the door open and then just start running until she got to the library. Maybe she’d just study or something like the mega-nerd that she was.

Or Taylor could sit down with her super-cute-blonde-roommate-with-occasional-criminal-tendencies and smoke some pot.

Taylor swallowed and took a seat. “Yeah, thanks.”

Lisa grinned, "Heck yeah!"

\---

Taylor was now sitting in a bean bag chair. She kinda forgot when or how exactly. No, wait, she remembered. She saw her memory playing out in slow motion: Lisa being like "woah, you look tired," and Taylor being like "yeah" and Lisa being like "why don't you get my bean bag chair and take a rest" and Taylor being like, "yeah".

Oh, so that explained why Taylor was sitting in a bean bag chair. She blinked with extreme slowness.

"Damn, that was only like two puffs?" Lisa said, standing over her with arms crossed. "You must really not have smoked in a while."

"Yeah," Taylor said.

"You had really good technique, though. Like surprisingly so."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I'm kinda impressed."

Taylor smiled. "Yeah."

"Yeah, I thought I'd have to walk you through it, step-by-step, teach you to how to hold it, how to inhale, how to exhale, fucking everything, but nope, you just really got it on the first go!"

Taylor blinked. "Yeah."

Lisa took out her phone. "You might just be a natural pothead."

Taylor blinked again. In the stretched-out time, her mind broke into a sudden sprint. Something didn’t quite fit here. Lisa was calling it Taylor’s first go. Which meant she knew it was Taylor’s first time smoking.

Taylor’s face screwed up with intense concentration. Had Lisa known that Taylor was lying right from the start? But then why would she pretend that she didn't? Why was she not pretending anymore?

Lisa held out her phone and a light flashed once and there was the snap of a digital shutter. A picture taken.

Of Taylor.

Sitting in a bean bag chair with a bowl of marijuana and a lighter.

"Y… what?" asked Taylor.

Lisa stuffed the phone into the back of her JUICYTM sweatpants. She leaned down so they were face-to-face and put on a sorry-not-sorry smile.

"Ok, Taylor, so here's the thing. As I mentioned before I'm a drug dealer. Now, I don't normally open with that line, and I don't normally do _this_ , but unfortunately I couldn't get a single-bed suite, and I was forced to have a roommate." She gently gestured in Taylor's direction. "You."

“Now as someone who doesn't want to go to jail, but also still wants to make fat wads of cash, that means I have to be a little safe. And in this case, safety means leverage." Lisa pulled out her phone again and held up the screen for Taylor to see.

Wow, Taylor thought in the third-person, Taylor looked super wasted in that picture.

"I'm going to be running a lot of drugs through here, Taylor and I can't afford you messing that up. So, I'm going to tell you this very, very directly, so there's no mistaking my meaning."

Lisa went over to Taylor and sat down next to her on the bean bag.

The temperature in the room suddenly spiked. “You’re uh. Close,” said Taylor.

“I am, aren’t I?” Lisa smiled and threw her arm around Taylor's shoulder.

Taylor stared at her with a half-smile of confusion.

"Don't ever rat me out, Taylor."

Taylor’s eyes closed and opened, still struggling to take in the closeness of Lisa.

"Because if I go down, you go down." Lisa raised her phone again and smiled for the camera.

There was a flash and a shutter and this time Taylor got to see the results immediately. On screen, was Taylor smiling like a dope and Lisa with her arm around Taylor, smiling like they were best friends.

"No hard feelings," Lisa said.

\---

“—feelings.”

Taylor blinked as she remembered the last ten minutes that had led to Lisa being cuddled next to her. Apparently, Lisa was blackmailing her.

Taylor blinked again, processing that.

“Okay,” she said, processed.

And then she leaned in and kissed Lisa.


	2. Hey, where's my wake-up call?

Taylor woke in bed, feeling sticky with sweat and remembering little of the previous day. She recalled vaguely, coming to campus, getting her stuff out of the car, saying goodbye to her parents, and then meeting Lisa.

Beyond that, the day seemed a blur. Still there in her memory, but vague and uncertain, like it had all just been a dream

Had she been _roofied_?

Hannah had warned her about that. Told her to keep an eye on her drink (if she drank, which she _shouldn’t_ ) and to never accept one from a stranger. Taylor had kinda rolled her eyes through the lecture, but it wasn’t as if she had ignored it either. She was _pretty sure_ she hadn’t been roofied.

Frowning, Taylor focused on her present circumstances. Her present _nasty_ circumstances. She had fallen asleep still wearing yesterday's clothes (wrinkling them to hell and back) and her glasses (attached to her ear only by surface tension. The rest of her was no better, a layer of grime seemed to cover her and her hair which usually fell lightly on her shoulders, was now a black tangled mess, full of knots. Taylor grimaced, feeling like a dirty lollipop tossed onto the sheets.

With some difficulty, Taylor got out of bed. Her muscles ached, but not with exhaustion, but as if they had suddenly been released from their chains and no longer knew what to do with themselves. They were _loose_ , so relaxed Taylor couldn't comprehend how they hadn't always been that way.

Legs and arms somewhat wobbly, Taylor got to her half-unpacked suitcase and rummaged out a change of clothes.

Across from her, Lisa’s side of the room was unoccupied, although it was clearly lived in. While Taylor had still been in the middle of unpacking and getting her things in order, Lisa's side of the room looked to have been set up months ago. Her bed was fully decked out with a cherry blossom pink comforter and something like fifteen pillows. Above the bed, her wall was covered in photos. Lisa out with friends in the park, Lisa rocking out at a party, Lisa in shades at the beach. All selfies, all taken with one or two or more people. All of them with Lisa grinning her lopsided grin.

A muddled memory bubbled on the surface of Taylor’s mind without revealing itself. Something to do with Lisa and that grin of hers.

But the memory wouldn’t crystallize any more than. Taylor frowned and headed for the bathroom. A shower would do wonders to clear her head.

After an almost entirely joyless rinsing, Taylor emerged from the bathroom feeling a little more like her usual self, but still clueless as to what happened the day before. Now with a clear head, anxiety was starting to sink in.

Taylor needed to do something. Luckily, she still needed to unpack her stuff, that would work to keep her mind off things.

She made for her luggage, but stopped as she saw something on her desk: A gift card, the kind you gave when you ran out of ideas for anything else.

Frowning harder than before, Taylor picked up the card. On the front was a cartoonish picture of a Christmas elf, shrugging its diminutive shoulders.

 _Sorry, I didn't get you anything for Christmas..._ said the elf in a text bubble.

Taylor opened the card and a photo fell out.

Inside the card, the elf laughed with manic hysteria, _But we could ALL do with some s-ELF improvement!!_

Taylor wondered if she was having a fever dream or something.

The photo that had fallen out had landed between Taylor's feet and she reached down to pick it up. It was glossy and sticky to the touch.

Taylor brought it up to her face and she stared at it for a long while.

It was a picture of Taylor sitting on a bean bag chair much like the one by Lisa’s bed. In Taylor’s hands was a pipe and a lighter and if that wasn’t enough, the expression on her face was the textbook definition of stoned-out-of-her-mind. Her eyes were half-lidded, her mouth slightly agape, and the color of her face was blown out by the flash of the camera. She looked like a deer that had sleep walked out onto the road.

Taylor swallowed hard. Inside her head was a thumping that echoed and the space in-between seemed to drag on forever.

By instinct, Taylor turned the photo around and sure enough, there was a message written for her.

_In case you forgot yesterday._

Taylor let out a breath and all at once, everything came back to her. A rush of feelings and sensations that had been locked away, suddenly burst into consciousness.

And one sensation in particular, stood out.

Lisa's lips on her own. A little hard at first, Taylor going in too deep and bumping teeth, but afterwards, the soft pressure, the warmth, the slight taste of ash shared between them.

Taylor hiccuped a little. She sank onto her bed, going catatonic as yesterday filled in.

Lisa was a drug dealer

And then Taylor pretended like she smoked pot before.

And then Taylor _actually_ smoked pot.

And then Lisa blackmailed her.

And then… _that_.

The memories of the kiss flashed with such clarity, it was as if Taylor were reliving them for the second—no, third time. It hadn’t lasted though, Lisa had shoved Taylor off and left, leaving Taylor to stumble around the room in a daze until finally she collapsed in bed and near-instantly fell asleep.

In the present, Taylor sat on the edge of her bed, holding onto the photo commemorating her first high.

She took a deep breath in, exhaled, and then with robotic precision she folded the photo, ripped it, folded it again, ripped it again, folded, ripped, again and again, until there was nothing left but glossy crumbs.

Lisa was a drug dealer and she was blackmailing Taylor.

She probably had more photos just like that one. She probably had it saved to her phone.

And what was it that Lisa said?

If she went down, so did Taylor?

Taylor put her head in her hands and however relaxed her muscles had been before, they were completely taut now.

Fuck, this was so bad.

Her roommate was a drug dealer and Taylor had _kissed_ her.

Taylor was so screwed.

She could _not_ afford to get kicked out of school.

Not _again._

\---

No bar looked good in daylight. Secluded corners became slimy alcoves, a moody atmosphere turned dingy and that grizzled handsome bartender turned out to be an unwashed, thirty-pounds-overweight schlub.

"Hey, how's my favorite schlub?" Lisa said as she came in through the door.

"Fuck you," said the schlub-bartender.

"How's the wife, the kids, all that?"

"Fuck you twice."

Lisa nodded at that. It seemed the divorce finally happened. She'd keep that in mind.

"Lovely as always, Joe," she said, "but I can't chat forever. Is my brother around?"

Joe scowled at her, as unhappy with her presence as he was with her blowing him off. "In the back," he grunted.

"Thanks, you're a sweetheart." Lisa veered off to the back of the bar.

The only bars that had offices in the back were the kind that weren't really bars. This was that kind of not-bar.

Sitting with his feet up on a metal desk and balancing a biology textbook in his lap was Lisa's brother.

Reginald Livsey was the perfect human specimen. Six-foot-one, broad shouldered, with a square jaw, he had tightly sculpted blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He completed his Aryan-Americana look with a school blazer set to his current target audience.

As Lisa came into the room, he looked up and broke out into a blindingly white grin. "Little sis! How's school?"

" _Still_ hasn't started yet, Reggie."

"Right, right, I keep forgetting."

"Yeah, I know," Lisa said and quickly got to the point, "So remind me again, why is it that I _don't_ have a solo suite?"

Reggie smiled and looked back down to his biology book. "Expenses, sis."

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me we can't afford it."

"We can't."

"Bullshit. Me and my girls have been busting ass. We had to refill our stocks three times last week. I know how much that should be, don't tell me the money just disappeared."

Reggie shrugged. "What can I say, you're doing well, but everywhere else business has been getting more expensive. Everyone wants a bigger cut while there's still a cut to be had."

"So _I'm_ the one who gets screwed?"

"What's the big deal? You have a roommate, so what?"

"The deal, _Reggie_ , is that it's bad for business when my roommate finds my stash and fucking narcs on me."

Reggie rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. Do you want me to send some guys to talk to this girl?"

Lisa sucked her teeth in and glared at him. " _No_ , you ass. How would siccing your goons on my roommate make me less suspicious?"

Reggie threw a hand up with the bare minimum of effort. "Well then, what do you want me to do?"

Lisa glared at him for a little longer before sighing. "For now? Nothing. I've got it handled. But next semester, I better be in a solo suite, got it?"

“Or else what?”

“Or else, I walk.”

For a moment, Reggie didn't say anything. Just looked at her with that half-smile so much like her own. Then he shook his head and laughed. "You know, if you weren't my baby sister, I'd kick your fucking teeth in."

"Try it, asshole."

Reggie laughed again. "Okay, okay, that's enough of that. I've received your complaint. Now are we done here? Can I get back to studying for my class?"

"Yeah, sure," Lisa said, standing. “I’ll see you around, bro.”

“Later, sis.” Reggie didn’t watch her go, just smiled and got back to his textbook.


	3. The semi-metaphorical duct tape line

Lisa smoothed her hair and shirt. Blackmail required a certain look. No one would take you seriously if you showed up looking like a mess. No, Lisa had to appear to be in total control of the situation and of herself.

Bonus points, if she actually was.

Lisa pushed open the door to her dorm and went in.

Taylor looked up from her bed, expressionless. Her eyes were no longer half-lidded, but alert and framed by black rectangular glasses, more fitting for a boy than a girl.

Oddly enough, she was in the middle of folding her clothes, a pile of shirts, pants and form-ambiguous hoodies covering her bed. Had she washed all her clothes the day after moving in?

Lisa didn't question it. Didn't say anything, either. She gave Taylor a perfectly friendly roomate-smile and made her way to her side of the room.

She went to her desk and unlocked the bottom drawer to pull out her laptop.

Behind her, Lisa could _feel_ Taylor's stare.

The air of an unspoken question emanated from Lisa's roommate. Poor Taylor, she must have been so confused.

Lisa opened up her laptop and turned it on to check her emails. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Taylor through a miniature makeup mirror.

It might as well have been a picture she was looking at for how stiff Taylor was. Eventually, the girl did move, just going back to folding her clothes. If one could sound defeated putting away the laundry, then somehow, Taylor managed to.

Lisa let her keep that up for a few more minutes, before she took the reins of the conversation.

"So, how'd you sleep?" she asked.

Taylor froze. Her head practically creaked as she turned to look at Lisa. "What do you mean?"

Lisa turned in her chair, one arm over the back. "I mean, how did you sleep, roomie?"

"Fine," Taylor said.

Lisa smiled. She was the anxious type, then. She had given off a sort of nervous chipmunk energy before on moving-in day, one part excited, one part scared. Now, she was just scared.

Good, that would make this easier.

"I was a little worried," Lisa said, "You were _soooo_ high."

If Taylor had been still before, she was statuesque now. After a moment, she blinked and it was as though her brain had gone through a reboot.

"I don't want to talk about it," Taylor said.

Lisa nodded. "That's good. That's a good attitude to take. It never happened, it'll just be our little secret."

A frown edged its way over Taylor's face.

"That's what good roomies do, right?" said Lisa, smiling. "We keep each other's secrets. We don't fight. We stay out of each other's way. We just pretend like the other one doesn't even exist. That's easy, right?"

Taylor stared at her, her expression frozen in time.

"Come on, roomie," Lisa said, a little stronger, "It's easy, _right_?"

"Yeah. Easy."

Lisa broke out into a grin. "Great! I'm glad we understand each other. It would've been _such_ a pain to find a new roommate, after all."

Taylor just stared.

She was a girl of few words, it seemed. That was fine by Lisa, frankly.

Lisa quirked her smile for another second before turning back to her laptop. "Well, I got a lot of classes to prepare for, so if you don't mind, just keep it quiet while I study."

Again, no response from Taylor, but eventually she started folding her clothes again.

Lisa started to check her inventory list, but her eyes wandered to the mirror again, checking on her roommate.

She had turned away and was just folding her clothes.

Lisa frowned. Okay, so _actually_ , the stoic thing was _not_ fine with Lisa. It was hard to get a read on someone who barely even reacted to being blackmailed. Lisa had expected at least _some_ resistance, maybe even some crying or _something_.

These goddamn quiet types, you could never really tell what was going on in their heads.

Lisa considered the possibility that maybe she was dealing with a grade-A nutcase.

"I'm sorry, by the way."

Lisa blinked and turned around.

Taylor still had her back to Lisa — was still folding her clothes.

"What did you say?" asked Lisa.

"Nothing," mumbled Taylor, not turning around.

Lisa frowned, but didn't push it.

She returned to her computer, but her eyes went straight to the mirror.

The girl was _sorry_?

There was only one thing she could have been talking about.

The kiss.

Lisa had shoved her off almost instantly, but she couldn't deny that she had been caught off guard.

Some people got handsy when they were high, Lisa had seen it happen a few times before. The handsy type would be touching people, hugging things, and kissing anyone they could get their hands on. Lisa wouldn't have pegged Taylor as that kind of person, but that's just how it was sometimes.

For her to apologize for it, though? After Lisa just did her blackmail bit?

Lisa frowned, trying to refocus on her work, but not succeeding at all.

Lisa might have to be careful. It seemed her roommate really was a nutcase.


	4. Yeah, I'm kind of a big deal back home

Taylor had finished unpacking. Her desk was set up with her laptop and books, all her clothes were put away after their emergency washing, and her bed was made, and then that was it.

She had no pictures to put up, no posters to hang, no trinkets or souvenirs to show off. Taylor had never really noticed how little she had until she was faced with a wall of photos and moments-lived on the other side of the room.

Taylor did her best to put it out of her mind and at the first chance she got, Taylor got out of her room to explore the campus.

Redfield University was a liberal arts school with a respectable, though not exactly impressive, position in the national rankings. It had been called “the Yale of very-reasonably-priced colleges”. Climate-wise, it ranked on the lower end of the spectrum, both for comfort and temperature.

Early fall brought chill winds from the lakeshore, and if CollegeReviews.com was to be believed, winter would be "cold enough to freeze your balls off".

Taylor didn't have to worry about that exact scenario, but she still got the general idea.

Going out, she wore one of her heavier hoodies, a uniform green pull-over with the pockets set in the front.

Despite the sub-50 autumn weather, there were _still_ people playing frisbee out on the quad. Two teams of freshman — former high school jocks — had come to participate only half-ironically in the quintessential college activity of Ultimate Frisbee.

Taylor walked past, though she kept her eye on the match. A number of spectators had gathered on the edge of the lawn, early luncheoners coming out of the cafeteria to enjoy the show with their food.

A few cheered and laughed as the game went on. None of them had quite settled in a pattern or clique yet. They were still reaching out, exploring their options, trying to find their group.

Taylor walked on, heading down to the main campus where her classes would be.

The North Lecture Hall was where most of her classes would be, pretty much all of the 100 level courses were held there. Like most freshman, Taylor hadn’t decided on her major just yet, and so she was planning on getting all her Gen. Ed. requirements done as efficiently as possible.

Taylor checked her schedule, and mentally mapped out the routes she’d have to take. Her Monday and Wednesday block of classes would be easy to manage, four of the four classes she had that day were in the Lecture Hall and she would just have to rotate between the classes as needed.

It was Tuesday, Thursday and Friday that might be an issue. Specifically, the class she was taking for the science credit. One would think a science class would be held in the science building where room numbers were sequential, but no, this class was in the library, in one of the many, many smaller rooms that comprised the many, many wings of the building.

Taylor looked again at her schedule and then, after a moment of fishing out her phone and googling, looked up the school map. She still had no clue how to get to her science class.

What the fuck did “Templeton, room 243B” even mean?

Taylor had no choice, but to ask for help.

As she got to the library, Taylor spotted a group of girls with their schedules and phones out, too. It was a whole floor of girls who had all come out here with the same idea as Taylor. They were in the middle of comparing their schedules, trying to decide where to go first or whether they ought to split up or not.

“Ok, so who’s got Calc 1?”

A few spoke up.

“How about Biology?”

More spoke up this time.

Taylor swallowed and stepped forth. If she didn’t do anything now, she never would. Trying to keep her grip on her schedule relaxed, Taylor walked over.

“Hey,” she interjected, “are you looking for Biology 103, too?”

The girls turned to look at her, and the one who had asked about Biology, gave her a mild smile. She had a milky complexion, but her hair was a deep red and she had a calm air to her. “Yeah,” she said, “Templeton, room 243B, right?”

“Yeah,” Taylor said, laughing a little, “I have _no_ idea what that means.”

The girl laughed back. “Yeah, same. Want to look for it together? More the merrier, y’know.”

Taylor smiled. “Sure!”

“Cool,” said the girl, “I’m Amber, by the way.” She gestured to her group. “Most of us here are from the same dorm building.”

The girls greeted Taylor in a pleasant fashion and said their names. Most of the girls. All but one.

Taylor didn’t think much of it. She started to introduce herself, “Hi, I’m—“

“Oh my god, _you’re Taylor Hebert_.”

Taylor froze and took a second look at the girl who hadn’t introduced herself.

Taylor didn’t recognize her at first. The girl was wearing glasses that hadn’t been there two years before and she had gotten a new haircut, her head shaved on her left half, with the hair on the right pulled to the side. A sidecut, a _very_ different look from the girl’s previous persona.

Back at Winslow High, Madison Clements had embodied the cutesy school girl with ribbons in her hair and pouty little smiles. Now… Taylor blinked, not quite believing her eyes. Now, Madison Clements looked like she was ready to discuss comic books over coffee.

“Do you know her?” asked Amber, confused.

“Yeah,” Madison said, her voice strained. She took a step back and looked over her shoulder — checking for escape routes, before looking back at Taylor.

“You… you go to school here?” asked Madison.

Taylor grimaced. “Yeah. I do.”

A silence passed between them, Madison staring wide-eyed, Taylor looking away.

It was Amber who spoke up. “Uh, what’s going on here?”

“I’ll explain later,” Madison said quickly. She grabbed a hold of Amber’s arm. “Let’s just go, okay?”

“Uh,” said Amber, but Madison was already tugging her towards the library. The rest of the girls followed after them, but not without a few uncertain glances directed Taylor’s way.

As a group, Amber, Madison and the other girls disappeared into the library, leaving Taylor alone outside the building.

“Fuck me,” she groaned, putting a hand to her face. She staggered to the side of the building and leaned heavy on it.

“Fuck me,” she said again.

Taylor really had the worst fucking luck, didn’t she? Just when she thought that she might actually make some friends, Madison Clements popped up to ruin it all. Taylor had gone out-of-state, almost half-way across the country and _still_ she somehow managed to bump into someone from her old high school.

As if being blackmailed by her roommate on the first day wasn’t bad enough, now _this_.

Taylor’s lean became a downward slide, and then the slide became a seat on the concrete. She stared vacantly up at the grey autumn sky, wondering just when it would start raining so that her absolute misery would be complete.

So much for new beginnings. So much for a fresh start.

Taylor sat there for a while longer.

Then some people came over for a smoke. Apparently, this was the designated smoker’s area by the library.

It was only cigarettes, but the smell still drove Taylor off. Hoping she wouldn’t run into anyone else she knew, Taylor retreated back to her room with her head hung low.


	5. Fuck You, Brain!

“Hey, is this where the party’s happening?”

Taylor looked up and saw a gaggle of boys outside her dorm building.

"What?" she asked.

"The party, you know. For..." The boy paused and then thought better of explaining. "Nevermind, sorry."

Taylor scowled and shrugged past the assorted guys to open the door to her dorm building. She had _no_ idea why they would think _she_ would know about a party.

The moment she opened the door, though, the thrum of music reached her — a deep bass thumping hard enough to make the air vibrate.

"Oh shit, it _is_ here!" one of the boys cried.

As Taylor entered her building, the boys followed her in. They didn’t thank her or even paid much attention to her. Their eyes were on the prize and they headed straight for the source of the music.

Coincidentally enough (or not at all), the source of the music seemed to be coming from Taylor's floor on the dorm.

Taylor made her way up the stair well, and every step she took to her room, brought her one step closer to the music.

Halfway up the stairs, Taylor spotted a couple making out, the guy pinning the girl to the wall as he explored her throat with his tongue.

Taylor sidled past, careful to not make contact.

Taylor made it to her floor, only one more door separating her from the muffled beat.

At this point, Taylor couldn't just turn away. She pushed open the door and a blistering techno beat nearly blasted her off her feet.

The hallway was packed with people. There were shirts off for boys and girls alike, exposing chest and bras respectively. The dancing crowd was semi-damp from sweat, beer spillage and other questionable substances. They danced, a throng of jumping and bumping.

For a moment, it was all Taylor could do, but stare. This was technically her first ever party.

Then someone bumped into her from behind, someone hurrying to get in and Taylor was forced into the masses.

Both the music and the crowd were overwhelming. Taylor was bumped this way and that to the beat of the song. She rebounded against one shirtless dude then was hip-checked by one girl, and then she stumbled through a door and into one of the dorm rooms.

She flailed, trying to find her balance, skipping one step, then another, until it was too much, and she fell face-first.

Any other time, and Taylor might have smashed her glasses, maybe gotten a bloody nose, but not this time. As luck would have it, a pillow fort had been constructed here.

She bounced a little off a pulled out mattress and turned over with a stuffed dog with a collar that said “Bitch”.

“Hey, bitch, what are you doing with my bitch.”

Two girls, one black and one white, sat sprawled on the next mattress over. They were in their pajamas, and though there was an entire dance party hysteria going on out in the halls, the two girls looked as though they had only just woken up.

“Biiiitch,” said the white girl, the word dragged out in a low barely cognizant monotone.

Taylor stared at her. The girl had cropped brown hair and a solid jaw, but most essentially, she was, in a word, big. Like pro-wrestler big. Like break-Taylor’s-arm-in-half big.

“My bitch. Give it,” beckoned the wrestler girl, her eyes half-lidded.

Taylor blinked and looked down at what she was holding. Right, the stuffed dog with “Bitch” in pink razzle dazzle glitter lettering.

“I’d do as she says,” said the other non-giant girl. She was much more reasonably sized, probably a little on the skinny side. She was dark-skinned and her hair was pulled back in a frizzy pony-tail and she was currently pointing at her large giant friend. “She’s very particular about her pillows.”

“ _Dogs!_ ”

Taylor flinched and stuck out the stuffed dog and the wrestler girl snatched it out of her hands.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the stuffed dog and then tossing it over her head.

The pillow sailed over a mattress-less bedframe, bounced off the wall and landed back in front of Taylor.

“ _Hey_ ,” growled the wrestler girl.

A realization came to Taylor. “You’re _high_.”

“We are,” said the other girl. She raised a miniature torch or conversely, a massive joint. “Care to join us?”

Taylor stared for a moment. Was _everyone_ getting high? Was this what college was?

Taylor laughed. What were the chances she would get blackmailed _again_ for this?

If it happened a second time, then maybe that was just how things were supposed to be.

“Fuck it,” she said and sat down. Who was she to deny fate?

\---

“Everyone _is_ always high,” said the girl named Aisha Laborn.

“Oh, I hate this one,” groaned the girl named Rachel Lindt.

“Wait, what?” said the girl named Taylor Hebert.

Aisha smirked. “What, you didn’t know? Everyone is always high.”

“Everyone,” repeated Taylor.

“Well, not _everyone_ -everyone,” explained Aisha. “But everyone who has like… a functioning brain.”

Taylor stared at Aisha.

“Okay,” Aisha said, spreading her hands peaceably, “I can see you’re confused, but I can explain. With science. _Facts_.”

Rachel leaned across the pillow fort to pick up a stuffed dog toy.

“What does it _mean_ to be high? Why do people _want_ to be high?”

“To feel good?” Taylor questioned.

“Yes! Exactly! To feel _good_. And what is good? Good is just endorphins rushing into your brain. You know, endorphins, that nasty chemical that pollutes your clear, level-headed mind. Or at least, that’s what the schools and the media and the _system_ will tell you. That it’s _unnatural_ to be high, to be _happy_.”

Aisha laughed, shaking her head.

“But that’s all bullshit. Endorphins are just hormones that make you feel good. That’s all they are! Feel good hormones that make you happy. They’re an expression of our primal hindbrain instincts to condition us to eat food, procreate and sit by fires. That’s how the hindbrain works, like a fucking puppmaster controlling you with injections of mood-altering hormones.”

Taylor stared transfixed, absorbing 500% of what was being said.

“But back to the point. _Everyone_ is always high. Everyone with a functioning brain, at least. They’re happy. They’re content. They just… _enjoy_ things and sleep well and smile. Like they’re fucking glad to be alive or something.

“And everyone else? All those poor fucks with broken brains? _They_ got the shitty brain that don’t start so good. The brain that makes you feel bad. The brain that tells you, you’re shit, you suck, you’re a worthless piece of crap. The fucking depressed brain!”

“Wooo!” cried Rachel, holding up a fist.

Taylor blinked for what was maybe the first time in five years. “Damn, I never thought of that.”

Aisha wagged a finger at Taylor. “That’s cause you’ve been _conditioned_ not to. That’s why no one ever realizes this shit. The system _wants_ you to be unhappy. Depressed people are easier to control and abuse. They have no will to fight because they have no will to live. They just _exist_ and do as they’re told because resistance means _caring_ — which they don’t.”

“Aisha,” Taylor said with cosmic slowness, “you are blowing my _mind_.”

Rachel giggled from the side, her face buried in the stomach of a plush bulldog. “Aisha, tell her about the cultural subconscious.”

“Cultural subconscious?” Taylor asked like a blazed-out-of-its-mind parrot.

Aisha’s eyes widened. “Okay, wait till you fucking hear this…”

\---

“Holy shit,” said Taylor as she cradled a stuffed dog toy as if it were a baby. “I never thought about that.”

“Yeah, your hindbrain usually blocks it out,” explained Aisha.

“Aisha,” said Rachel, reaching into her drawer to pull out more stuffed dogs. “Tell her about the Ditto theory.”

“The what?” asked Taylor.

“Okay,” Aisha nodded. “So you know what Pokemon is, right?”

\---

“So they’re _all_ Dittos?”

“All of’em.”

Taylor rolled over onto the spread of stuffed dogs. “Fuck.”

Aisha nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

After a moment, disconnected thoughts connected and Taylor asked with full sincerity, “But what about Digimon?”

“Well!” Aisha declared. “Allow me to explain.”

As Aisha launched into another mind-bending revelation, Rachel started putting dogs atop Taylor’s prone body.

\---

“My whole life… it’s been a _lie_ ,” whispered Taylor, only her face visible from underneath a stuffed dog dogpile.

“That’s all society is,” Aisha said, her arms full of stuffed dogs, “The lies we’ve been taught to accept.”

Rachel walked over, and put a stuffed dog over Taylor’s face.

“ _Deep_ ,” Taylor said, muffled.

\---

At some point or another, the party outside ended. When the music stopped blasting, and people stopped dancing, and the air finally stilled, the silence was almost like whiplash. Taylor lay there in a new pillow fort constructed almost entirely of stuffed dogs, and re-evaluated whether this was even silence she was hearing, or was it just the sounds that she so normally heard, that she could block it out effortlessly?

She was about to ask Aisha when she heard a snoring.

Aisha was curled up like a cat in the stuffed-dog-fort, fast asleep.

Beside her, lying with arms fully extended like a fallen tree, was Rachel’s unconscious form.

Aisha and Rachel. Sleeping.

Not scheming. Not talking about Taylor behind her back. Not taking out their phones to take pictures to blackmail her with.

Just Aisha and Rachel, so at peace, that they could fall asleep right beside someone they had met only a few hours ago.

A smile touched Taylor’s lips and she let out a breath.

With her brain for once, clear, Taylor fell asleep.


End file.
